


No matter how many times you crash

by Laura_Sinele



Series: Fictober 2019 drabbles [11]
Category: Crash Pad (2017)
Genre: Gen, Mild Language, Recreational Drug Use
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-15
Updated: 2019-10-15
Packaged: 2020-12-17 02:34:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 575
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21046871
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Laura_Sinele/pseuds/Laura_Sinele
Summary: Stensland flew like a condor for a brief moment, but life is like a roller-coaster and once you are up, you can only go down.





	No matter how many times you crash

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Fictober19 prompt 13: "I never knew it could be this way".
> 
> I fully intend to turn this into a longer kylux adjacent with Clyde Logan, but I'm getting myself in too many projects so, no promises.

He vaguely heard the front door open and close. It must be Lyle. Lyle still had keys, in case of an emergency. He kept his eyes glued to the TV screen, watching the umptenth repetition of a “How Do They Do It?” he, somehow, managed to miss or, more probably considering the amounts of weed he was smoking lately, he had forgotten. 

“I never knew it could be this way…”, his intoxicated brain provided, and then informed he had just said that outloud. 

“Which way?”. It was so funny, Lyle sounded just like Grady. Why would Lyle sound just like Grady? He had to ask Lyle, but first he needed to get this out of his chest. 

“This complicated? The way they make bananas ripe is so over-complicated? Like. Like, like, like. It takes weeks? And tons of money, and fuel, and intermediate steps, and a weird gas, and hermetic chambers, and plastic! So much plastic, TONS OF IT! You know I’m trying to go zero waste, here”. Stensland made a wide gesture with his arms, encompassing the whole living-room, which was currently flooded with take-away containers and empty cans of Shanty’s Irish Mulligan Stew. Like it had always been before Stensland’s Blooming Into A Condor. 

“I can see that”, said Lyle-with-a-voice-like-Grady’s.

Stensland felt the sofa dip at his right and turned to give a proud “thank you” to Lyle’s appreciation, when something happened and Stens had to jump and scream. Because there, sitting next to him there wasn’t Lyle-with-a-voice-like-Grady’s. It was Grady-with-a-voice-like-Grady’s. Which explained the weird thing where Lyle had Grady’s voice. 

“You are smoking way too much Mary Jay, my friend”

“What are you doing here?”, asked Stensland from atop the arm of the sofa. 

“We heard you were fired and I thought I would check on you”

Stensland’s face fell and Grady stretched himself to wrap a fatherly arm around his shoulders and make him sit down properly. 

“There, Stensland. Everything will be okay”, said Grady soothingly.

Stensland said something unintelligible, and then something more, and he let out a broken scream, clutching at his chest. Grady looked up unconsciously, as if seeking divine help, and kept tapping on Stensland shoulder. He even let him cry and drool all over his Hugo Boss blazer. When the sobs started to remiss, Grady asked Stensland if he wanted to tell him how it all went down. Stensland looked up at him:

“I… I literally just told you! About the Malcolms and everything, weren’t you listening?”

Grady decided to tackle things from a different approach. He stood up and commanded:

“Okay, you babbling stinking mess. Enough self-pity and wallowing. You are going to take a damn shower and wear clean clothes and pick up this godforsaken mess before I have to call my wife to coax you into it. And when this stops smelling like the back exit of an Irish pub, you will tell me how the magnificent condor I saw fly away proud and mighty has become this poor excuse for a man in less than a year”.

Stensland stood and moved frantically, overwhelmed by so many inputs so suddenly and the down of the weed, but at the end of Grady’s speech he gave off a passionate “yessir!”, and headed for the shower. In the meantime, Grady took off his suit jacket, rolled his sleeves up and started to pick up trash.

“Can’t fucking believe it’s the second time I’m doing this”.


End file.
